


Afterlife

by drellassassin



Series: Death Becomes Them [2]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Church of the Black Klok, Death & Fighting, Gen, Immortality, M/M, Possible Triggers (Will note them in chapters), Post-Doomstar Requiem, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:44:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1644266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drellassassin/pseuds/drellassassin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war starts, and their numbers dwindle, each member finds themselves waking up in a very familiar place, forced to deal with a life after death. A prequel & sequel of the sorts to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1068167">Trust Me, I've Tried</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Highly recommended that you read [Trust Me, I've Tried](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1068167) before reading this, or it may not all make sense! 
> 
> **Warning:** There will be a lot of death in this! There will also be some possible triggers down the line, and I will call them out before the chapters. All chapters will involve a major character death, and violence, though it may not be very graphic.

What William remembered first was waking up.

His eyes opened slowly and adjusted to the room around him, and it took a moment for him to realize that he was exactly where he was when he blacked out.

Except, no one else was here.

Well. That didn’t make much fucking sense.

The screen was down at the far end of the wall, flickering with a white static noise that wasn’t changing. There was no sound, but he was thankful for that. He didn’t need to hear the static. That was the worst part about falling asleep with the TV on.

Only…he hadn’t fallen asleep with the TV on. He wasn’t even in his bedroom.

He was in the band’s meeting room.

This was where he blacked out.

He remembered it now, he was sitting where he was now, playing with his knife, waiting for their meeting to start. There was no sign of their new manager, so people were goofing off.

Toki and Skwisgaar were on their side of the table, Skwisgaar messing around with his Gibson like he always did, and Toki was on his phone.

Pickles was drinking a beer, but wouldn’t give William one. Nathan was writing something down in a notebook and occasionally checking his phone, mostly keeping to himself.

They were sitting there waiting for a while, and William was about to complain about their new manager not showing up, but that thought died off really fast.

Then men dressed in black came crashing through the windows of the room, and a fight started to break out.

Skwisgaar started to hit guys off with his guitar. Pickles and Nathan were throwing punches. Toki kicked a few guys and started to beat on them on the ground.

A man came up to William and grabbed his left arm hard, ripping off the bandage that surrounded his wrist, and the man pressed his thumb into William’s cut, making it bleed.

Purple. It bled purple.

Then, William blacked out.

Then, William woke up in the same room.

“Fuck this,” He muttered, standing up from his chair, and moved past all the other chairs, nicely pushed in against the table, and went to the door.

He opened it and walked through, only to find himself in the exact same room. “What?”

He went back to the door and opened it, and again found himself entering the door from the far end of the room. This happened a few times, before he screamed “What the fuck is going on!?”

“My friend, screaming will not help you.”

William jumped at the sound of the voice behind him and he turned towards the table to see the priest guy sitting in what was normally Charles’– erm, their new manager’s seat. “Please, sit down.”

“What the fuck, how did you get in here?”

“I used the door. Please, sit down.”

William’s eyes narrowed, but he did so anyway, sitting back down in his original seat. “What the fuck is going on?”

“My friend, I’m afraid you have died.”

Rolling his eyes, William crossed his arms over his chest, “ _Psh_. Yeah. Right. Like I’m supposed to believe that!”

Ishnifus – was that his name? William couldn’t quite remember but it seemed right in his head – turned on the screen behind him.

The white static turned off and what turned on was commotion. There was fighting. Actually, it was the fight that he remembered before. Except, he was there.

He was there, fighting _against_ everyone and with the strange ninja-like men. It was like he was watching a movie, but he was in it.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Someone has taken you over, and now you fight for the other side.” The Priest said, sitting tall in Charles’ seat, his hands clasped over each other on the table. Ishnifus’ back was to the video, _We have to go!_ Nathan’s voice came through the video, punching a guy who tried to get in his way, _We have to go! Now!_

On the screen, Nathan and Pickles were fighting their way through towards the door, knocking a few guys out in the process. Skwisgaar was using his guitar as a weapon as much as he could, able to seriously harm some of the guys, and called out for Toki.

Toki was fighting the best that he could, but Skwisgaar couldn’t get to him in time. Toki screamed in pain as a knife went through his heart.

William knew that knife.

It was his.

“Turn it off!” He screamed, but the man in the robes didn’t budge, and William slammed his fist into the table.

The man sitting in Charles’ chair simply turned around to face the screen, and even though William didn’t want to watch, he did.

_”Toki!” Skwisgaar screamed, his eyes trained now on Murderface, though he knew enough to know that wasn’t really him. “Yous fuckings bastard, I’ll kills you!” Skwisgaar lunged forward, but was stopped by Nathan._

_“No, Skwisgaar! We have to go. We have to go.” Nathan’s hands grabbed at Skwisgaar, and soon Pickles was there, pulling back the screaming guitarist, struggling against his bandmates trying to make an escape._

_The three of them fled the room, Skwisgaar leaving his guitar behind, as the traitor was soon surrounded by the mysterious men. He wasn’t killed though, instead, one of the men handed him a match book, and the traitor lit a match and set the room on fire._

At this point, William closed his eyes and looked away. Was he being punished for something he didn’t know he did?

“That wasn’t you, my friend.” It was as if Ishnifus read his mind, and William opened his eyes, looking up at the other man. “A long time ago, you were infected, and these men activated that. Who you are…died when that happened.”

The bassist – could he even be called that anymore? – looked down to his left wrist and pulled back the bandage that was there to find there wasn’t a mark on his skin anymore. "So...when did this happen?"

"Right when you woke up."

William stayed silent for a moment, trying to formulate a good thought. Nothing was coming.

“But Toki…” He started, but Ishnifus just turned around to face him again, and nodded.

“He’ll be here soon.”

“Oh…” He started to say something else, but William’s voice hesitated, as he watched on the screen that the room he was in was fully on fire. He looked around the room he was in now, to see that it wasn’t.

This wasn’t the easiest thing to understand.

The screen shifted to following the four men who survived now, but William couldn’t watch it. He didn’t want to watch it.

It was one thing to believe that he was dead. It was another to believe that he was now ‘watching over’ everyone else. Though, it wasn’t really watching ‘over’ as it was just watching. He wasn't in heaven, that's was for sure. But there was something for certain.

They had lives.

He didn’t.

Fuck, this sucked.

****

****************

When Toki woke up, he was on the floor of the meeting room, feeling as though there was something sharp in his chest.

He pushed himself off the floor slightly, leaning back on his elbows as he ran a hand over his heart. Nothing was sticking out, nothing sharp anyway. He was still intact.

So why did he still feel like there was something sharp sticking out of his chest?

He groaned in pain as he found a nearby chair, and rolled it out towards him, and pulled himself up using it. Toki sat in the chair, and put his head on the table, groaning again, “Ow…”

As far as Toki knew in that moment, he was alone. He muttered to himself, and lifted his head, only to feel shocked when he saw William across the table.

Toki's eyes narrowed and he stared at William, who looked ashamed.

"Your eyes ams not purple no mores..." Toki finally said, and William looked away.

"Do you know what happened, Toki?" Ishnifus asked, and Toki looked over to the priest, surprised to see him.

"I...ams not too sures, but I knows you ams dead!" He shifted his seat away slightly from the priest, his eyes wide and scared. Toki heard William sigh.

"Yeah, well we're dead too," William said, slouching in his chair, his eyes looking up at the screen following the survivors. "Ask weird dead Santa about it."

Toki blinked a few times, as he looked over to the screen William was looking at. On it were Nathan, and Pickles, huddled in a circle talking about something. Skwisgaar was off to the side, looking visually upset. He looked like he had been crying.

The screen continued to show the three remaining members, as they headed towards what looked like the Church of the Black Klok, and were greeted by Charles in his robes. The four of them talked, with Nathan visually angry, Pickles visually confused, and Skwisgaar not reacting to anything. Charles just listened, and nodded.

Something else seemed off. They all seemed...older. Minus Charles. Which was weird.

Ishnifus started to explain once more what had happened. Toki and William listened intently as the past-priest talked about the traitor and the Half Man. The battle had begun, and Toki and William were the first casualties.

He explained something else: "You can't leave this room. Not yet. Consider this a...waiting room."

"When can we?" Toki asked.

"When you have all been reunited. The five of you."

"So you are saying we are stuck here until they all die?" William asked, angry, "and we have to sit here and watch it happen?"

"An hour here is a year in the real world." The rest of his meaning, that they wouldn't be waiting long, went unsaid.

Before them on the screen, a battle was playing out. Blood was shed. People were dying. What remained of Dethklok fought as they recruited people to their cause. They aged. Charles stayed the same.

It was hopeless, watching it all play out like this. There was nothing Toki or William could do. Nothing. All they could do was sit, watch, and wait.

An hour passed.

It appeared that after a year, things were only getting worse.

They watched as Skwisgaar became a hardened man, focused on revenge and battle more than focusing on his own well-being. The guitarist fought with anger fueling him, taking out men twice his size, using any blunt instrument he could find to aide him. His guitar was long gone, and what took its place was a man who went into a blind rage, unable to control himself when he became overwhelmed with grief.

They watched as Nathan took up guns, shooting the enemy clear between the eyes with no remorse, but struggled with the pain of wounds once the battle was through. The front man screamed as he ran head first into groups of the enemy, and killed them mercifully, though he didn’t seem to take any pleasure in the act.

They watched as Pickles screamed and sliced his way through hordes of the Half Man's troops, leaving limbs and blood in his wake, but became silent once it was over and they had retreated back to their safe zone. The drummer no longer drank, apparently feeling like he needed to keep his wits about him, though that didn’t help blocking out the memories. Because of the lack of loss of memory, he would go into a strange state where he would zone out and just kill anyone who crossed his path – the remaining members seemed to avoid Pickles whenever that happened.

They also watched as Charles never aged, but became more ruthless. They watched him come into his own with his powers, taking down hundreds of men with a flick of his wrists. They watched as Charles planned out battles, conferring with the other three as the next course of action. The newly appointed Priest fought with more conviction that he ever had before as if he felt he had something to prove. As if he blamed himself for everything.

Toki and William watched from their seats, unable to pull themselves away from what was unfolding.

They saw everything.

Battle after battle.

Death after death.

It was getting to be too hard to watch.

For William and Toki, it had only been a little over two hours.

For those who still fought, it had been almost two and a half years, and things were not getting better.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been two and a half years since it started.

Well, it had been two years, six months, fourteen days, and around seventeen hours since it had started.

Not that Skwisgaar was keeping track. He wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

The four of them had moved around so much in the past few years that even Skwisgaar didn’t know where he was anymore. He thought maybe Brazil, but Pickles told him that was wrong, they were in Texas. So, that just proved Skwisgaar still didn’t know his geography.

Or, that he just didn’t care anymore.

Before everything fell to shit, Skwisgaar had always felt like he had an air of superiority. He was the fastest guitarist in the world; he was idolized by millions of women (and men). He was in the most famous death metal band in the world. He had done some pretty crazy shit, and he was one of the only few people who remained standing after it was all said and done.

Hell, he had been hit by some weird light, and ended up getting some powers, so that had been good. Except for one thing: the powers only seemed to work when the five of them were together, and now that two of them were dead, that became useless.

_Two of them were dead_. When Skwisgaar was alone at night with his thoughts, that was usually what he thought of. Both Murderface and Toki were dead – though there was a weird person living in Murderface’s body now, so they all still saw him at every battle.

Skwisgaar had been watching him closely for two years now, and watching how the Traitor – as he was called now – fought. He was training so he could defeat the Traitor once and for all for what he did.

The traitor had taken over Murderface, but he had murdered Toki. Right in front of everyone. Right in front of Skwisgaar.

That was the one thing Skwisgaar always saw when he closed his eyes at night. Toki screaming and reaching out for him, and he was always too slow to save him. It was a sick joke, re-living Toki dying like that every night. It caused Skwisgaar to go into a blind rage when on the battlefield, when he was wearing his military-grade armor that Charles got for them all, when he had nothing but his bare hands and his anger to fight with.

In a way, he understood Magnus and his threats of revenge. Though, Magnus didn’t see his best friend killed like this. And actually, Magnus also stabbed and hurt said best friend, so maybe that comparison wasn’t the best one.

Still, he understood revenge now. It was all that fueled him.

Charles had started to warn Skwisgaar that if he didn’t let some of his anger go, it was going to end up getting him killed, but those warnings always fell on deaf ears. What the hell did Charles know? He knew nothing of revenge and regret like Skwisgaar did.

And when it came to regrets, Skwisgaar had a few. More than a few.

Most of them related to Toki.

It was why Skwisgaar was so determined to end the Traitor once and for all, even if it would end up killing himself in the process. There was nothing else to this life now but this one thing. It was all that drove him.

Skwisgaar was always present in the war rooms – whatever room they decided to make the main control room when they got to a new location. He stood around whatever table was there, as Charles laid out the maps and Pickles pointed out strategic maneuvers and Nathan looked for the advantage points. Skwisgaar never offered much to the conversation, staying quiet, nodding when someone asked if he agreed.

He didn’t talk at all these days.

Except for today.

“Ah, alright, here is the latest. Their camp is here,” Charles was saying, pointing out a location on the map. He had shed his robes for the moment, as he usually did around the guys, and just wore regular clothing. Skwisgaar always thought it was strange that Charles did this, but figured it might have been to help keep them all grounded.

Despite the fact that Charles now seemed capable of just killing a man by looking at him a certain way. Yeah, that really kept them grounded.

“There is a forest, well there _used_ to be a forest to the west, we can come in through there,” Charles continued.

“Used to?” Pickles chimed in, “What’s there now?”

“Desert.” Nathan shrugged, “Checked it out yesterday,” He said, as he got a glare from Charles, but Nathan didn’t notice it, “Forest is completely destroyed, but there is still enough destruction left over that we could use it to our advantage.”

Pickles’ nose scrunched up, “Cover, ya mean? I don’t know, seems risky.”

Skwisgaar was listening intently, but staring at the map, trying to figure things out in his head. He was the one who lead the ground troops usually now, Nathan had the snipers, Charles had the heavy weapons (because he practically was one himself now), and Pickles had the support. “Don’ts cares, we go in.”

The other three looked up and stared at Skwisgaar with surprise, seemingly shocked the reclusive ex-guitarist was actually speaking. Skwisgaar didn’t notice this though, and instead just kept talking, as he dragged his finger across the map.

“We sets up heres, send in our mercenaries peoples first, clear it out.” He spoke, and continued on with his plan. It would bring them right through the back of the Traitor’s camp, and they could take him out once and for all.

If the others protested, Skwisgaar didn’t notice. He had finished talking and had already walked away, getting ready for the fight.

They’d leave in an hour, as soon as the sky got darker.

****

****************

Everyone was set up, and Skwisgaar heard Charles’ voice in his ear: “Skwisgaar, you need to be careful. I understand this is our first big chance at taking him down, but you need to tread lightly.”

Skwisgaar was leaning against a tree, watching the troops at the Traitor’s camp march back and forth, “I gots this,” he replied, his facial features hardening. As far as Skwisgaar was concerned, this was their only chance at taking down a major part of the Half Man’s army.

It was also the only chance at taking down the _thing_ that murdered Toki. Skwisgaar would get his revenge; he would risk his life for it.

“I have visual,” Nathan’s voice came into Skwisgaar’s ear now, “The fucking Traitor is meeting with the General, east to the tent.” It had been strange to know that Nathan was above miles behind Skwisgaar, looking through his sniper rifle with his fellow snipers around him, but it was also kind of comforting. Nathan had an attention to detail, this was no different. “I’ll give you the go when it’s clear, Skwisgaar.”

It had become clear that this was Skwisgaar’s battle. It wasn’t anyone elses. This was his chance.

He waited. Then, Nathan gave his go, and Skwisgaar hissed the order to his men, and they went charging into the camp with full force. Shots went off, and he heard a slice of a sword and found Pickles to his left.

“Go, dood! I got this!” Pickles called out, slicing off an enemy’s arm in the process.

The camp became overwhelmed – the troops of the Half Man and the Black Klok troops got into a fight that turned into pure-bloodshed, as it always did. Before long, not only were Skwisgaar’s men and Pickles’ men there, but Nathan’s gun troops and Charles’ heavy weapons experts were there as well.

It was enough of a distraction for Skwisgaar to sneak away, and to find the traitor. The Traitor had just killed one of Pickles’ men, and had his back to Skwisgaar. A sword from the Black Klok soldier was on the ground and Skwisgaar picked it up, screaming “You’ll fucking pays for whats you dids to Toki!”

In one move, the sword went through the Traitor, slicing through his back and coming out through his chest, taking out his heart in the process. Skwisgaar pulled out the sword, the backsplash of the blood spraying across his face and next as he watched the Traitor fall to the ground, dead.

In that moment, Skwisgaar felt at peace. He felt accomplished, finally taking out the being that had not only taken Murderface from them, but his Toki as well. _His_ Toki. He had never been able to admit that to himself before. It felt good to do that now.

Proud of himself and smiling, Skwisgaar let his guard down enough to not see the next thing coming.

Once the bullet from the General’s gun went through the back of his skull and out his right eye, he never saw anything again.

****

****************

As Skwisgaar fell down dead on the screen, Toki stood up and screamed, “No!” He slammed his hands down on the table, tears streaming from his eyes. “No! Fix it!” He screamed at Ishnifus, who turned around to face Toki.

“Toki, you must calm down. This is the natural order of things.”

“Oh fucks you! He didn’t see that comings!” Toki protested, as on the screen Charles and Nathan came upon the General and Skwisgaar’s body.

_Skwisgaar fell to the ground, just as Charles and Nathan stepped in, and Nathan started firing angry and blindly, as Charles charged the General._

_The General shot at Charles but it didn’t matter. The bullets went in him, but didn’t hurt him, and it only served to push Charles on further._

_He quickly moved to the General’s left in a blink of an eye, and snapped the General’s neck in one move. Nathan bent down to get Skwisgaar’s body._

_”Fuck. FUCK!” Nathan screamed out, angry as he ran towards what they had all deemed as their central meeting point when the fighting was done, “We have to fucking get out of here!”_

_Charles was running beside him, taking out men that came towards them as they went, staying silent as he protected Nathan and Skwisgaar to the best of his ability._

_Pickles caught up to them, and those who remained in their army after the fight followed suit once those who were at the camp were dead. The remaining two members of Dethklok and their ex-manager gathered what remained of their people and moved towards their next destination._

Toki couldn’t stop the damn tears from falling on his face, and he stared at William, who he figured would have made fun of him by now. But William was just as upset as Toki was.

He looked like he didn’t want to talk about it, and Toki didn’t either. What they just saw was horrible, and it was the first death (other than their own) that they had seen.

“Are you sure this isn’t Hell?” William finally asked, “Because it sure fucking feels like it! What sick fucking joke is this?”

“I don’t make the rules,” Ishnifus said, tone showing no emotion whatsoever, which only pissed Toki off more.

“Where is he? You said they ams comings here, ja? Where is Skwisgaar?” Toki, still standing, slammed his fist into the desk, eyes narrowed at Ishnifus.

On the screen, Charles, Nathan, and Pickles held a funeral for Skwisgaar. The video then showed the three men walking away, as they talked about where to proceed from there. Charles went silent, Nathan said they needed to get somewhere safe, and Pickles muttered about wanting a drink.

A few minutes went by, but Skwisgaar still hadn’t shown up in the room.

Toki pushed away from the table, and headed for the door.

“You can’t leave! There’s nothing there!” William claimed, and Toki turned around and growled at him.

“I don’ts cares! He has to be heres somewhere!” Toki pulled open the door, and instead of finding himself back in the conference room, he was in one of Mordhaus’ hallways.

Toki walked down the familiar hallway until he stopped at the only door there, and opened it. It revealed his own room, but with Skwisgaar sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.

Stepping hesitantly into the room, Toki couldn’t help his eyes starting to well up. “Skwisgaar…?”

When he spoke, Skwisgaar’s hands dropped though his head still hung low. He slowly looked up, revealing his own face, tear-stained and upset, and when he laid eyes on Toki, he stood up and ran towards him and wrapped his arms around him in a hug.

“Toki, is it really yous?” Skwisgaar’s face was buried in Toki’s hair, his words almost a muttering, but Toki heard him and just nodded quickly, clinging to the blonde-haired man just as much as he was clinging to him.

They stood like that for a moment before Skwisgaar pulled away, looking at Toki, “I watched yous die, I ams so sorry, I…is this real?”

Toki refused to let Skwisgaar go far, and his hands moved to Skwisgaar’s, taking hold of them and squeezing tightly as he explained everything that Ishnifus had told them. He explained where they were, how they were only confined to one room before Skwisgaar got there for some reason, and that they were stuck here until everyone else arrived.

“Until they dies.” Skwisgaar said, his tone quiet, as Toki nodded.

“Ja. Come ons.”

Skwisgaar, still holding tightly onto Toki’s hand and refusing to let go, followed the younger man back towards the conference room, where he saw Ishnifus and William watching a screen.

Skwisgaar immediately lunged at William and started to punch him, “You bastards!”

William shoved Skwisgaar off him, “Is this going to happen every fucking time? _It wasn’t me!_ ” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Skwisgaar, who looked at Toki for confirmation.

Toki nodded. “It wasn’t Murderface, it was someones else, I forgaves him already. It ams okay.” Toki took his seat back at the table, and Skwisgaar joined sitting next to him, though they remained close.

Ishnifus explained what he knew to Skwisgaar, and while Skwisgaar was understandable confused, he seemed to accept it. Or, as much of it as he could.

“How long has it been?” William asked, looking at Skwisgaar.

“Almost three years when I…” Skwisgaar stopped, still feeling weird about the fact that he was technically dead. In Mordhaus. Which he saw get burned to the ground.

Ishnifus cleared his throat, “My friends, I’m not sure why we are all still here, but we have to wait to find out.”

Toki whispered something to Skwisgaar in Swedish, and Skwisgaar looked upset. “You means we have to watch thems?”

“There’s nothing else we can do,” William said, slouching in his chair once more.

On the screen, the remaining survivors looked older now. Pickles’ hair had a tint of gray to it, Nathan’s face looked older and he was growing a beard which also had a tint of gray to it. Charles, as always, had remained the same.

They watched as they continued to battle the Half Man’s forces, and trained new recruits. Some of the new people remained promising. Some of the new people died the first day in battle.

The more the men fought, the more worn down they looked. Even though Charles’ appearance never changed, when the screen showed just him and him alone, he looked tired. He didn’t look as determined as he had years before.

Nathan and Pickles were even better fighters than they were before, but even they were showing the wear and tear of what they were putting themselves through. They still planned each battle with as much passion as they always had though.

Just because their numbers were dwindling, did not mean they needed to give up. So they kept on fighting.

Officially, it had been seven hours since William woke up in this room.

Officially, it had been seven years since the Half Man took over the Earth.


	3. Chapter 3

The biggest problem with being sober as much as Pickles had been lately is that it was harder to get into that escape mode that drinking usually created for him.

He needed to be focused and he needed to be able to see the task at hand -- running around with swords drunk wasn't a good idea. He learned that the hard way when he was training with them years ago, and accidentally sliced off the tip of his left pinky.

So he cut back on the drinking, at least waiting until the fighting was over. He couldn't be accidentally cutting off limbs - or worse, killing their own - because they had so few people fighting for their side now.

With age came wisdom, but even he longed for the days that he was less responsible and not always held accountable for his actions. Hell, he longed for the days that they weren't leading a fight to take back the earth and help free millions of people.

That would take a lot of pressure off.

Even though it had been ten years since everything started, it felt like it had been longer. He had changed so much. They all had. Nathan's hair was starting to get grayer, and he was sporting a beard now. He kept his hair back most of the time, because having it down was causing a distraction and got in the way of his sight. Pickles asked him once why he just didn't cut it, but Nathan muttered something about keeping it as a reminder of who they used to be.

Yeah, Pickles understood that.

He had changed a lot too, his hair almost completely gray now -- but it looked good on him, he was a silver fox (or so he thought) -- and he was far more muscular that he was before. That was thanks to the fact that almost every day for the past ten years he was literally fighting for his life and for those who still survived around him.

He hadn't been driven by revenge like Swiksgaar was, and he didn't have the dethlight power anymore like Charles had, but he was driven by the fact that he wanted to make things right. Pickles felt responsible in a way for everything that happened, even if his fate had been decided by a prophecy years before he had even _joined_ Dethklok.

That prophecy thing always rubbed him the wrong way. It still did, even when Charles talked about it as if it was still the be all that ends all. What the hell would drawings tell them that damn life experience didn't? He was well aware there was a war going on. He was living it. He was fighting the enemy each and every day, and running for his life any time the Half Man appeared on the battlefield (which thankfully wasn't too often, because you can't really kill someone above life and death).

The pressure of staying alive, of helping others, of trying to be a protector -- it was getting to him. Enough that he wanted to take drinking back up again, but knew he couldn't drink like he used to when he was younger.

He was older now, and while he might not be completely wiser, his body seemed to be. Charles said Pickles and Nathan had to pay attention to their physical limits now, they had to remain sharp and on top of things, but know when they had to retreat.

It felt like all he was doing these days was retreating. Lately they had been losing more battles than they had been winning, and while they were still able to recruit to their resistance, they were still bleeding people faster than they could train them.

It was getting to be too much.

They returned back to base after a battle had actually gone well for once -- they had gotten intel that there was a small sleeper cell of the Half Man's men an hour away, and they had sent in people to take them out. Without Swiksgaar leading the ground troops (and that was still a wound that wasn't healing for any of them), Pickles had lead the assault. He planned it out, and Nathan and Charles had agreed to the plan. It went exactly as expected, and they managed to take out some higher level men in the enemy's army.

So, Pickles wanted to celebrate.

It took some convincing to get Charles to join him, but eventually he did, and Nathan came down as well, the three of them sitting around a table in the abandoned mansion they had set up camp in.

"Found rum, whiskey, and look Charle, even got you brandy." Pickles laughed as he joined the men at the table, setting each of the bottles down. There weren't glasses, and any small luxury they had, they took these days. So a bottle for each of them, it was something to be celebrated.

Nathan laughed as he grabbed the rum and slid Charles the bottle of brandy. Charles actually smiled, which wasn't something that he did lately. To be honest, none of them did. After everything that they had lost, there wasn't much to smile about these days.

"Hey, you remember when we finally got you to come out drinking with us?" Nathan asked Charles, and Pickles laughed.

"Not sure he remembers _any_ of that, right chief?" Pickles opened the bottle of whiskey and smelled it before taking a drink. The familiar burn warmed him up a bit, and caused him to sigh happily. He needed this.

Charles was tapping his fingers around the bottle of brandy, and laughed, "You're right, I honestly don't remember...any of that. I remember the fight earlier..."

"Wait, fight?" Nathan raised an eyebrow, and for a moment, Charles looked sheepish. Pickles stared at him, surprised to see Charles emote like this. He had been so stern for so many years now, Pickles almost forgot what it was like to see any of them just relax and be themselves.

Not that Charles had never really relaxed around any of them. Charles shrugged, "Yeah, there was a fight on the roof, ah, well to the death, really."

Pickles and Nathan fell silent for a moment before Pickles slammed his hand on the table, "I _knew_ that story wasn't true! Jesus, you _killed_ the guy!?"

"I didn't mean to! Listen, nothing was going to get me away from you guys, and I told him he'd have to kill me if he wanted to try..."

Nathan was laughing hard, holding his side, unable to control the deep laughs coming out of him. "This is fucking awesome," he laughed, "Holy fuck, you fucking killing machine." Nathan punched Charles' shoulder and despite shaking his head at everything, Charles grinned back and finally took a drink of his brandy.

Pickles leaned back in his chair, taking the bottle with him and rested it on his knee, "You know what's sad about all this, is that was part of the good old days. People dyin' around us all the time, we never batted an eye." He chuckled, "Is it bad I fucking miss that?"

Nathan shrugged, "Nah, I mean I miss that too. Not needing to give a shit."

"Hey, I gave a shit." Charles protested, but ended up laughing.

It all sounded so ridiculous, talking about the past and how things used to be when the world was so different now. Even where they sat now, this wasn't Mordhaus. It almost wasn't a house anymore, with walls blown apart, rubble everywhere. Pickles was surprised the house was still standing, but it still held most of their troops, and those that weren't in the house were camped outside.

It was a big difference from Mordhaus, and a big difference about how they used to live.

"Whatever dudes, I'd give anything to go back to that." Pickles said, thoughtfully pausing before taking a drink. The silence between the three men told Pickles that the other two thought the same, and they sat drinking in a comfortable silence for a while.

After a while, the silence broke and they continued to reminisce about the 'good old days'. They took turns telling stories, and laughing at each other. Charles even admitted he had been a huge Snakes n' Barrels fan back in the day, which prompted Pickles to drum out one of the songs on the table and Charles unashamedly sang to it, with Nathan laughing deeply the whole time.

It felt good to focus on something other than the death and destruction surrounding them these days -- not saying that it didn't surround them before, but now there was the weight of the world on their shoulders. Being able to sit back, have a few drinks, and laugh about their shared history, felt good. It brought a better feeling to everything that they had to do.

At least, it felt better for Pickles, and that was all he really wanted.

Eventually, they called it a night - Nathan headed out first, wanted to get some sleep before the battle tomorrow, and didn't feel like welding a gun (or guns in his case) hungover. Charles mentioned that he wanted to go over the plans once more before bed -- though the other two knew that Charles hadn't slept a day in ten years. Something about being the Dead Man with new abilities meant he never had to sleep. Or age.

Pickles was slightly jealous at that.

"Hey, chief before ya go?" Pickles said, as Charles stood up to leave the table.

"Yes?"

"Listen, I know this is a, weird request, but can ya promise me somethin'?"

Charles raised an eyebrow, "Depends on what I'm promising."

"When I die, will ya bury me with my swords? I feel like I might need them or somethin' after all this." Pickles shrugged as he stood up from the table, deciding to leave what was left of the rum on the table. "I figure I might as well be prepared. Ya never know."

Pickles' eyes diverted from Charles for a moment, in what might have been the only real serious part of the night. Charles just stared at Pickles for a moment, making no attempt to hide the sad expression that he held. It was a reasonable request, it was just one Charles didn't want to think about.

Pickles didn't either, but at least he knew it was something that had to be done.

"Yeah." Charles finally said, "I can promise that."

****

****************

The plan was simple: they would pull out all the stops.

They had a chance to take more high ranking men, and Pickles wanted to do it out in the open, to prove that they had no fear of the other side. It was almost as if he had a death wish, but that wasn’t true. He wanted to prove to the enemy that they weren’t going to fucking back down. The Half Man and his army could take as many people as they wanted; they weren’t going to fucking take what the Black Klok army stood for.

At first, Nathan thought the plan was insane. “You’re going to get us fucking killed,” he had growled at Pickles earlier in the morning, though he still stood fully behind the plan. “It’s fucking insane.”

“It’s time we got up there in the middle of the fight, Nate,” Pickles had said, pulling on his armor, “We can’t expect no one to fight for us if we won’t fight for them.”

“He has a point,” Charles had said, standing by in his own armor – purely for show at this point – his arms crossed over his chest. “We can’t be leaders of the resistance if we refuse to show that we want to lead.”

Nathan grumbled and muttered something under his breath that neither Charles nor Pickles heard. Some things would never change.

Pickles was grateful for that.

Their army was prepared for the fight and were warned that this could get bloody. This was the chance they were waiting for, Pickles had told them, this was the first time they had a huge opportunity to take more people out since Skwisgaar had died taking out the Traitor. Much to his own surprise, Pickles ended up giving a rousing speech, telling the troops that they would fight and they would _win_. He felt it in his heart; this was going to be the biggest step forward in ending this war.

It helped knowing that Nathan and Charles stood by his side, completely agreeing with the plan and going along with it. Together, they couldn’t lose.

They moved their troops forward, the three of them leading the charge as their army came in behind them, and ran head first into the fight. The three of them stood back to back as much as they could: Nathan took the east, Charles handled the north and south, Pickles took the west. Nathan and Pickles stuck to guns, Charles had one gun on him but was using whatever powers he had now to knock people back -- it wasn’t something that Pickles understood, and it wasn’t something he ever questioned.

He was just glad they had him on their side – he didn’t want to think what this fight would be like if they didn’t have someone who could potentially match the Half Man. Hell, he didn’t really want to think about what this fight would be like if he wasn’t with those he trusted. He didn’t even _want_ to be in this fight.

The three of them fought, and they fired. Nathan got a few right through the eyes, Pickles managed to get a few heart shots. No one knew exactly what Charles was doing, but whatever it was, it was working.

Until someone had managed to get between the three of them, causing them to separate from their position, the chaos around them was engulfing them fully.

Pickles took out his swords; both secure on his back and pulled both out quickly, immediately decapitating the two men who came towards him. He used every move he knew, every move he had learned from Charles over the years, and some that he ended up making up himself.

Maybe he didn’t make them up, but there was no one around to question him now.

One of the Half Man’s top Generals came running towards them, wielding two swords like Pickles did, and noticing this, the ex-drummer narrowed his eyes and ran towards the man at full speed.

Steel clashed with steel, and soon the general fell, losing his arm and then his head both by Pickles’ steel. Despite winning the fight, Pickles didn’t stop to celebrate; he knew how that had ended for Skwisgaar. Instead, he kept fighting, kept slicing, finding his way back to Nathan and Charles who had managed to regroup.

He reached them just as more rushed them, and while Pickles and the rest took out a lot of men, one soldier managed to stab Pickles in the side, through the soft part of his armor. Pickles fell to the ground screaming, pulling the knife out and throwing it towards the guy, hitting him in the back of the skull.

Well, at least he had aim.

Nathan and Charles protected Pickles as their troops surrounded them, Nathan and Charles helping Pickles up and falling back as their troops fought on.

By the end of the fight, the Black Klok army had won, taking out five top generals and most of the Half Man’s army, taking some wounded men as prisoners to torture and get information out of.

Pickles had his arms around Nathan and Charles’ shoulders, badly wounded but doing his best to keep going. It was until they were safe that Pickles struggled free and fell to the ground, landing on his knees, his hands planted firmly on the ground.

“Pickles, we have to keep going, we’re almost back at the base, we have to help you.” Charles spoke, his tone firm, but Pickles knew well enough that there was worry behind those words.

“I can’t do it, Charlie, I can’t go any further.” His hand moved to where the knife went through, and as he held onto it, he fell onto his side in pain.

Nathan and Charles were at Pickles’ side in moments, Charles helping Pickles to be on his back, and held up his head, as Nathan looked him over with a grim look on his face, putting pressure on Pickles’ wound the best that he could.

“How do I look?” Pickles asked, choking out a laugh.

Charles offered a small smile, “It’s not that bad, really…”

Pickles closed his eyes, “Charlie, just remember what you promised me.”

Pickles went quiet, as Nathan looked down at the wound, and moved his hands, the blood completely covering his hands.

Later, they’d have a funeral, and Charles would honor his promise. Right now, they felt as though they couldn’t do anything else.

****

****************

The conference room was silent, as the four men in the room watched the screen and watched as Nathan and Charles honored Pickles in a small funeral, and Charles set Pickles’ swords in the ground with him as he asked.

After a while, Toki closed his eyes and looked away, putting his head in his hands. “This ams too much!”

The silence in the room served as the reply, as William stood up and cleared his throat, heading for the conference room door. It had been a few minutes since Pickles had been buried in the ground, which meant he might be at Mordhaus now.

It felt like torture, waiting around for their brothers to die. It felt like torture sitting there not being able to do anything.

Slowly, more rooms had opened up to the four. William’s bedroom had appeared in the hallway, and Skwisgaar’s did too. Still, only their bedrooms and the conference room existed. They just had to wait.

Though, William knew what to expect by now. So into the hallway he went, and found another door had appeared – it must have been Pickles’ room.

He found Pickles standing in his bedroom looking at a mirror – he wasn’t the older man with gray hair that Pickles was in the video feed. He was the Pickles that William remembered, younger, skinnier, bright red hair. Pickles seemed shocked by everything, but seemed to be taking it better than Skwisgaar had.

“Hey ya, Murderface,” Pickles offered weakly as he turned around to see William standing in the doorway.

They stared at each other for a little bit before, William gestured towards the hallway, and Pickles, nodding, started to follow him.

Their friendship had never been based on words when they were alive, but Pickles trusted him in life before, and knew well enough to trust him in death.

Besides, he had read more on the prophecy than the rest of them.

He had known all along that this was coming.

His swords rested on his bed as he shut the door behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been five years since Pickles had died.

Five years of leading the battle of the resistance, of the Black Klok army, and while their numbers grew, it didn’t seem to matter. For ever one person they added to the army, another six fell. It had been five long years.

Five years of suffering through war after war, loss after loss. Though of course they did have their wins now and then. Nathan took to keeping tally of the wins and even the losses. Charles frowned against it, but Nathan said it would just give him something to look forward to. Something to, “you know, write down. Because I don’t write anything anymore.”

Charles understood that. Mostly because there were a lot of things that Charles didn’t do anymore either.

Like sleep. Sleep was a big one, he hadn’t slept in fifteen years. He hadn’t slept since the dethlights hit them all, he hadn’t slept since the war started.

He also hadn’t aged in fifteen years. That was the weirdest part, but he stopped caring about what all of this meant for _him_ and only focused on what it meant for the war. Charles was more powerful. He had honed his abilities and learned to control them; he was a master of his own art now.

Nathan had become a master as well. He was a world-class sniper, if that sort of distinction even existed anymore, but he was just as good in up-close battle as he was shooting someone through the eyeball 200 yards away. Nathan had aged, but age looked good on him. His hair was shorter now, gray at the temples, hair usually pulled back with whatever he could find at the time. At the moment, it was pulled back into a makeshift ponytail with a piece of string he found tied around a corpse.

That was the thing about the world now, they had to make do with what they had. So if that meant they had to cut down the bodies of people the Half-Man’s army had strung up in the trees to find rope for holding things together, so be it. Those people were dead and there was nothing they could do for them now.

Nathan and Charles ruled the Black Klok army with iron fists. They were feared and respected, and people would die for their cause. Because their cause was one that affected the world - they had to take back their lives. They had to take back what was theirs.

Of course, people would do anything for Dethklok before, and even though there was only one member of the band left alive, they would still do anything for them.  
One night, in an odd honest moment between the two men, Nathan admitted something. They had taken up camp in an abandoned hotel, half of it blown off. Charles had managed to do a protection barrier around the hotel for the night -- how Charles could do that now, Nathan had no idea, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask. He learned never to ask.

The two men sat side by side on one of the remaining balconies, their legs hanging off the edge of it. “I don’t think I can keep this going,” Nathan admitted, staring out at the deserted parking lot below the half-standing hotel, where their troops had set up camp. “Do these people even know what the fuck we’re trying to do anymore?”

“I’m sure they do, Nathan. I don’t think people would follow us blindly --”

“That’s what they’ve _always_ fucking done, Charles!” Nathan turned to look at Charles, Charles who hadn’t aged a day, Charles who looked the same as he always had. Charles with the same look of calm certainty that Nathan was growing to despise. “How can you fucking say shit like that, when thousands have died? When the rest of the guys all _died_?”

Charles’ eyes narrowed, as he looked away from Nathan and to their troops below. “Because if we don’t still believe we have a fighting chance, then we’ve already lost.”

“You honestly think we still have a chance?”

There was a brief hesitation before Charles replied, “Yes.”

Silence fell between the two men. Below, troops were talking out battle plans, and practicing shooting, killing the half dead animals that wandered the woods around them.

“I think you’re a fucking dick sometimes, you know that?” Nathan hissed, and Charles stayed silent. “I don’t get how even _now_ you’re still just as fucking cold and calculated as you have always been. Where is your fucking _humanity_?”

The moment Nathan had asked that, he immediately regretted it. He could suddenly feel it getting very warm where he was, and he looked over to see Charles’ eyes glowing red.

“You damn right well where my **_fucking humanity is_** ,” Charles spoke, a deeper tone underlining his normal voice, sounding almost demon-esque. Charles only spoke like this in battle, when he was using all his anger against the enemy. He had only done it once with Nathan before and immediately apologized after.

Nathan wasn’t so sure that was going to happen this time.

“All I have left is this war. There is nothing else.” Charles growled, looking away from Nathan and staring out into the night, not focusing on anything.

Hesitant, Nathan placed a hand on Charles’ shoulder. He stayed silent as he watched Charles, his eyes slowly fading from bright deep red, to a glowing white, before they returned to his normal eyes. If anything about Charles was normal anymore.

Charles cleared his throat, but didn’t look at Nathan when he spoke, “You know better than to bring that up, Nate.”

“I know.”

“So, why did you?”

Nathan shifted, taking his hand off Charles’ shoulder and stood up behind him, stretching out his back before he spoke. “Sometimes I just need to check to see if the guy I knew is still in there.” Nathan stared at Charles’ back before he walked back into the ruined hotel, leaving Charles on the balcony alone.

Fifteen minutes passed before Nathan went back out on the balcony to check on Charles, but instead saw him down below talking to the troops. Nathan didn’t question how Charles got down twenty floors so fast, but he knew better than to ask questions now.

It was better than knowing the truth.

****

*******

Pickles had found it hard to believe that only five hours had passed since he was back in Mordhaus, but he seemed to understand the situation better than the rest of the guys. Once again they were all gathered in the conference room, watching the screen play out what was happening back on Earth.

More of Mordhaus had opened up to them, familiar rooms all branching off one long hallway, but despite the new freedom of moving to other rooms, they all stayed in the conference room.

Watching.

Waiting.

“Has its really beens fifteen years?” Toki asked quietly, as they watched Nathan and Charles prepare for their battle that morning, with Nathan giving one of his speeches to the troops.

“You know, he’s gotten pretty good at that shit! Look at him!” Pickles laughed, actually smiling as Nathan talked about giving up their lives for the Klok and killing anyone that crossed their paths.

Toki, annoyed that he was ignored, repeated himself, but louder. “Pickle!” He finally said, as William and Skwisgaar stayed silent and watched the conversation, “How can yous be so calm?”

Pickles looked over to Toki, as he leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his hands held together in one giant fist. “Because I read the prophecy, dude. I know what happens.”

The collective _what?_ that came from the other three caused Pickles to laugh, as he leaned back in his chair and shifted to put his feet up on the table in front of them.

“Yeah, dudes, listen. I figured it out, the day before I died. I tried to tell Charles, but he wasn’t listenin’ to me. I wrote some of it down in Nathan’s notebook, but he never said anything to Charles. See?” Pickles pointed to the screen, which now showed Nathan looking through the notebook, and Pickles familiar handwriting was shown. Nathan closed the notebook and tucked it into his jacket, before putting a bullet proof vest over it.

William groaned, “If Nathan knows, why isn’t he fucking doing anything about it? What the _fuck_! Why is everyone so fucking _stupid_? God fucking dammit!”

“Easy for yous to say, mister I died befores the rests of us.” Skwisgaar rolled his eyes, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned back in his chair. He looked over to Toki next to him, who just sighed.

“I’m telling you, dudes, listen to me!” Pickles spoke up again, “There’s a big reason why Nathan won’t say anything to Charles. It’s because for us to win--”

“--Nathan will have to die.” The voice came from the back of the conference room, and the guys turned around to see Ishnifus sitting at the end of the table. It didn’t shock them though, the old man came and went as he pleased. It had been hours now, years on Earth, and the rest of Dethklok were used to it by now. “I believe that Nathan is holding it back, because he thinks he is the last link to humanity that Charles has left.”

Pickles nodded, as he looked back to the screen. “Yeah, see? Nate dies...and the chief won’t be the chief anymore. He’ll…”

Pickles trailed off as the five men in the room all looked at the screen, where Charles and Nathan, and their best troops, were fighting a battle.

****

*************

“You, get to my left!” Nathan shouted, pointing at one of his men, and pointed at another, “You to my right! Go!”

The three men charged forward, guns blazing as they took down the men that fought them. One after another came charging at them and shooting, and they fought back with as much honor as they could. Nathan got a few headshots in, and the men he was with, well they took down more than a few people themselves.

Charles was out front in the distance, as always acting alone, taking out more of the Half-Man’s top men, using whatever powers he had now. Nathan didn’t ask. He didn’t want to ask.

To be honest, Charles was starting to scare him. Charles was more brutal than he was before, and Nathan wasn’t sure it was a good thing, not the good brutal Nathan was used to.

Distracted for a moment, Nathan was taken off guard as someone punched him. He retaliated quickly by shooting the man in the heart, and took out the others coming towards them. One of Nathan’s men took out a grenade and threw it towards the small army of people running towards them.

In the distance, Nathan could make out Charles slicing people with a sword - he had taken up using swords now, in honor of Pickles, though he still always had his pistols with him just in case. Charles took out men, and when he saw people trying to escape, he had ran towards them at lightening speed and cut off their heads. Their blood splashed over Charles’ face, but he didn’t seem to bat an eye at it. His eyes were glowing red.

Nathan couldn’t focus on the uneasiness of the sight, as he quickly ducked another punch and a sword coming at him, the two men that were with him suddenly taken down. Actually, all of the people from the Black Klok army that were around Nathan were dying without anything touching them, and those that weren’t dying were retreating.  
Something wasn’t right.

_“You are mine now,”_ A voice called out and Nathan looked behind him to see the Half-Man standing in his bone armor, reaching out towards Nathan. the Half-Man twisted his hand in the air, and suddenly Nathan fell to the ground, clutching his heart.

He screamed out in agony. He couldn’t go out this way. No, this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

“ ** _How dare you even try,_** ” a familiar demon-esque voice boomed behind Nathan, and he didn’t have to look behind him - if he even could right now - to know who or what it was.

“Do you really think you can defeat me, Charles? Just because I cannot see you doesn’t mean I can’t tell you’re there. _Your power is giving you away_.” The Half-Man laughed, and Nathan screamed as the pain moved from his chest to his right eye. Soon the Half-Man was hit with a burst of white, and he took a step back, but Nathan still called out in pain. the Half-Man laughed again, and Nathan could feel heat radiating behind him.

“Torturing him is too much fun for me, Charles, I can feel what it’s doing to you!” the Half-Man taunted, as he kept deflecting Charles’ shots of power, whatever it was. Nathan couldn’t see anything. Oh god, he couldn’t see anything. “Do you understand the pleasure each of their deaths gave me? They were just so _easy_ , do you really think I won’t just destroy the rest of your army?”

Nathan felt the heat move suddenly from his back to in front of him, but it wasn’t fast enough. He screamed out in pain, as he felt the blood pour out from what was his right eye. The hold Selacia had on him released and Nathan fell to the dirt, screaming and convulsing, losing blood. His left eye managed to stay open, managed to give him the sight of Charles some how floating above the ground, radiating nothing but deep red, electric shocks dancing on Charles’ skin.

The last thing Nathan heard was Charles’ booming voice telling the Half-Man that he would find a way to kill him, as the Half-Man laughed.

Then everything went black.

****

*************

_It’s not your time. Go back._

_What? What do you---_

_Go back. You need to tell him._

_Yeah, dude, go back!_

_Pickles, is that you--_

****

************

Nathan woke up screaming. He couldn’t see anything, his heart was beating way too fast. He couldn’t see anything.

“You’re okay! You’re okay!” He heard a voice say, and Nathan realized he had actually been screaming out loud that he couldn’t see. “Hold still, let me help you.” The voice was familiar. Female. He felt the fabric move away from his left eye and while it took a moment to focus, when he did, he struggled to sit up.

“Abigail?”

“Shush, calm down, _will you_? Jesus, he’ll kill me if he knows you woke up like this!” Abigail actually laughed, and Nathan felt nothing but confused.

“Where am I?”

“You’re underground, in one of the headquarters. Do you remember the Church you were brought to all those years ago? You’re there.” Abigail spoke, as she took a wet cloth to Nathan’s forehead, cooling him down. “You’re safe for now.”

Nathan moved to sit up, while Abigail tried to hold him back, but he swatted her arm away, sitting up fully. Now that his left eye was focusing enough, he slowly looked around. The walls were like the inside of a mountain. The furniture was relatively modern, but old. The bed was a king sized, deep red sheets, dark wood frame. Next to the bed was a set of glasses and a tie.

He hadn’t seen that tie in years.

“How did I get here? How long have I been out?”

“A week. Don’t ask how you got here, because I honestly don’t know.” Abigail sighed, as she moved from the wooden chair she had been sitting on next to the bed, to sit on the bed itself next to Nathan’s legs. “You lost your right eye. We had to sew you up, and you lost a lot of blood. You’re lucky Charles managed to recruit the best doctors to work for our cause, or you would have died.”

Nathan muttered something under his breath, but Abigail didn’t hear it. Or if she did, she pretended that she didn’t. She sighed softly, “You’re really lucky to be alive, Nathan. I thought we lost you for a bit there.”

“Yeah, well, looks like I’m still here.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Yeah, I...well…” Nathan raised his hand to brush over the fabric on his right eye. “Give me a mirror.”

Abigail bit her lip, “Nathan, I really don’t think that’s a good--”

“Abigail. Please.”

Abigail sighed, pressing her lips together tightly before she nodded and stood up from the side of the bed, and disappeared out of Nathan’s line of sight. She came back, making noise so he heard her from his right side, and she removed the fabric that rested on his right eye. “Here,” She held out a hand mirror, face down, to his left hand.

Surprisingly, there was no hesitation as he lifted the hand mirror and looked to see his eye was sewn shut, swollen, and while it was mostly cleaned up, there was still some dried blood. There was bruises around that side of his face. He reached up and touched it softly, and sighed in frustration.

Abigail was looking down at her hands, before she looked back up. “Are you going to be okay--never mind, that was a really stupid fucking question. Listen, I’m going to give you some time, okay? I’ll come back to check on you later.”

Nathan stayed silent and just nodded.

****

*********

“Why hasn’t Charles gone to check on him?” William asked, breaking the silence in the room as they watched the scene unfold before them. There was a tone of concern in his voice, but none of the other guys called him out for it.

That was a first.

“I don’t know, where is he? Don’t we usually get to see what is going on?” Pickles asked, and looked over to Ishnifus, sitting at the end of the table still.

The older man shrugged, “Sometimes, we can’t see what people don’t want us to see.”

“Yeah, likes peoples can decides what we sees in the afterlife.” Skwisgaar scoffed, and Ishnifus shrugged.

“You forget that Charles isn’t like most people anymore.”

The scene on the screen changed slightly, finally showing Charles. He stood in front of the prophecy painted on the wall, tracing his fingers over the older paintings. Abigail was shown walking up behind him.

_“Charles,” Abigail spoke as she walked down the hall, her monk robe flowing behind her, “He’s awake.”_

_“I know,” Charles responded, though he kept his back to Abigail. She didn’t seem surprised by his answer, and kept approaching him. He spoke again, “I keep thinking that I’m missing something. Every battle we have won and loss has started to appear on this wall, every death of each of the boys. Nathan’s accident isn’t here.”_

_Abigail finally reached Charles’ side, standing next to him, and she looked at the wall with him. “Do you think that maybe it’s because he wasn’t meant to die yet?”_

_“Yet.”_

_“You know what I mean, Charles. I’m not trying to upset--”_

_Charles raised a hand and cut her off, “It’s fine.” He paused, “Go speak to the monks and the generals of the army, tell them I will expect them in the large hall in two hours. We have to start taking a new approach.”_

_He didn’t wait for Abigail to answer him, instead Charles turned around, and walked out of the room._

Back at Mordhaus, the room had once again grown silent.

****

**************

Nathan had gotten out of the bed, dressed in the clothes that were waiting for him, and started to walk around the room. He stretched out, he took his time, because his body wasn’t in as good shape as it used to be -- not that he was ever in that good of shape to begin with -- and he had to be careful of how he moved. Laying in bed for a week hadn’t done him any favors.

He had paced enough of the room to know exactly whose it was, though the items on the bedside table had given it away. Nathan sat back down on the edge of the bed, and opened the drawer in the bedside table, and took out the black marker that rested there. He then took the red tie, and started to draw on it.

“What are you doing?”

Nathan didn’t look up, as he continued to draw, and he heard Charles walk closer to him, and then sink into the bed next to him.

“I’m making an eye patch, what does it _look_ like I’m doing?” Nathan muttered.

“Ah, with my _tie_?”

Nathan looked over to Charles, needing to turn fully towards him to see him. “You’re not using it anymore.” He shrugged. He moved back to what he was doing, and finished what he was drawing, and started to knot the tie around his head.

“Here, let me help.” Charles said, his voice softer than Nathan had heard it be in years, as Charles helped turn the tie into a makeshift eyepatch. “Let me see.”

Charles leaned forward to look as Nathan looked towards him, and Charles swallowed hard when he saw what Nathan had drawn on the tie.

“It’s the gear,” Nathan said, as if Charles had forgotten Dethklok’s old symbol from years ago. Charles nodded.

“I know.”

“Oh yeah, right. You’re all knowing now. I forgot.” Nathan’s voice had a hint of bitterness to it, and Charles flinched slightly. Nathan was surprised at the action.

Charles cleared his throat, and wrung his hands together, “I’m not all knowing. If I was, this would have never happened.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you honestly think I would purposely put you in harm’s way?”

“Isn’t that what a war is? We’re all in harm’s way. We’re all going to die one day.”

Charles stayed silent. Nathan cleared his throat.

“Well, you know what I meant.”

Heavy silence fell between the two men, until there was a knock on the door. “Your Holiness, we’re waiting.” A monk called from the door, and Charles replied, “I’ll be there.”

Charles cleared his throat, “Nathan, uh, I need to…”

“Yeah. I’ll be around. I need to get back to training, figure out what use I am now.” Nathan didn’t look at Charles when he spoke.

Charles sat up from the bed and started to walk out of the room, but when he reached the door he stopped. He didn’t turn around to face Nathan, but spoke, “For the record, I didn’t want this to happen. To you, to any of you boys. Nathan, you’re, ah, officially all that I have left.”

Nathan looked up to reply to Charles, but Charles was gone before Nathan could say anything.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** There will be a lot of death in this! **There is also a possible trigger in this chapter, so be aware of that** , though if you have read TMIT, you know what is coming (kinda). All chapters will involve a major character death, and violence, though it may not be very graphic.

For every hour that passed in Mordhaus, it was another year on Earth. After Nathan woke up from his week-long coma, realizing he had lost his right eye, the time seemed to pass faster. Nathan got his strength back, he learned how to command rather than fight, and learned how to aim with his left eye looking through the sniper lense rather than his right.

Charles took on the armies that came at them from the ground, while Nathan covered from above. Abigail worked to train the men back at the Church, and helped scout out new areas that they could hide to. Nathan never asked how Abigail met up with them, or how she was still alive.

Nathan was getting tired of wanting to know the truth about things, and he was just getting tired in general.

It had been five more years since he had lost his eye.

It had been twenty years since the war started.

And Charles still hadn’t aged a day.

Tension between the two men had started to fade away over the years, though some of it was still there. The original makeshift eyepatch had been turned into a real one, with actual protection over his lost eye, though the fabric in the front was still Charles’ old tie. Every time the gear Nathan had drawn on the tie started to fade, he took the eyepatch off and went back over the design carefully with a black marker.

It was a reminder of who he used to be, of how they _all_ used to be. Younger. Men who didn’t care what they did, only cared about music and partying. He missed those days.

He was still keeping tallies of the fights, the wins and the losses, but he was keeping tally of the days too. His dreams were just as prophetic as they used to be, but he kept having the same one. The one where his bandmates, looking how he remembered them, telling him to tell Charles the truth.

Nathan couldn’t handle the responsibility of telling Charles what Pickles had written out in Nathan’s notebook. He didn’t want to tell him that once Nathan died, Charles was destined to lose all sight of who he used to be.

He didn’t want to tell him that when he died, Charles would lose all humanity and they would lose the war.

So the years passed, and it ended up being five years ago to the day that his eye was lost. Nathan was older now, his hair mostly gray, and surprised himself at the fact that he felt a little wiser.

“You know, I think you’re jealous, Charles.” Nathan joked, as the two men shared a bottle of whiskey that Abigail had found on one of her scouting trips. She had gone off again to find the next safe house, and Charles and Nathan hung back at the Church location hidden deep in the mountains.

Charles looked over at Nathan and laughed, “Jealous? Of, ah, what exactly?” Their banter had gotten back to the lightness that it had carried before years after the war started, before they had lost anyone other than Toki. Nathan had opened up more then, and Charles was happy to see it happen before. Now, he was just as happy, if not also worried.

“You never age. So, you’ll never look as good as I do at this age.”

“And how old are you again?” Charles asked, raising an eyebrow and Nathan laughed.

“Oh fuck off,” Nathan laughed harder, as his laughing turned into a cough. The cough lasted a little bit, his left hand covering his mouth as he coughed, and when he stopped and pulled his hand away, he did his best to hide the small spots of blood that had appeared there. Charles didn’t seem to notice.

Or if he did notice, Charles didn’t say anything. Instead, he joked with Nathan. “You...do realize I’m older than you, right? So I technically look better than you…”

Nathan furrowed his brow towards Charles, and Charles seemed to give up, waving off his attempt at a joke. The men shared a few more drinks, as conversation turned to the upcoming plans for a battle.

“Hey, it’s getting late,” Nathan finally said, once they had decided on a good plan for the upcoming week. “I think I’m going to call it a night.”

Charles nodded, as Nathan finished the bottle of whiskey off and handed the empty bottle to Charles. Nathan headed off towards his bedroom, as Charles stayed in the main room, opting to look over their plans once more.

****

*************

“Hey, assholes, get in here!” William yelled into the hallway, as Pickles poked his head out of his bedroom door down the hallway. “Hey!” William kept yelling, and Pickles headed down the hallway, with eventually Toki and Skwisgaar followed.

“Dude, what are you hollering about?” Pickles grumbled, as he stretched out. It didn’t matter that they were dead, he still felt like he had to get sleep. It was an old habit that wouldn’t die -- unlike the rest of him.

William pointed towards the screen in the conference room, as the other three filed in. “Look, something’s happening.”

The screen was showing Nathan lying in bed, holding onto his notebook. He called out for Charles.

“Did yous calls us in here for their…” Skwisgaar started, but William stared at him and Skwisgaar shut up.

“No, I have a feeling something -- not _that_ , cause that’s fucking _gay_ \-- but something is going to happen.”

Pickles moved past the other three standing at the door and took his normal seat at the table. “No, I feel it too, dude.”

The guys took their seats at the table, and watched as Charles walked into the room.

****

********

Charles had a bad feeling. He hadn’t had this feeling since Pickles died, and that scared him. Still, when he heard Nathan call for him, he went into his bedroom anyway.

Nathan was sitting up in his bed, eyepatch still on. “You know what I was thinking of?” Nathan started, as Charles walked into the room, and sat down next to Nathan on the bed, “Remember when you came back?”

Charles raised an eyebrow, “From when I died?”

“Yeah, do you remember that?”

The line of questioning was weird, but Charles went along with it, “Ah, yeah, I do.”

“I remember being really fucking pissed off at you. I remember being so fucking angry, and I couldn’t understand why you’d keep all that shit from us for so long.” Nathan spoke, coughing a bit before continuing, shifting so he was sitting up more in the bed. He shifted over to the side, so Charles could sit up against the headboard with him, and Charles did that, resting over the sheets while Nathan rested under them. “But you know, I get it now. You saw all this coming, didn’t you?”

Charles cleared his throat, “I already told you that I didn’t, and that I can’t see into the future…”

“Charles, I meant, the prophecy, what you were told. The war. You had an idea, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then I think you, somehow, knew it would come to this. I mean, fuck, we can all kind of,” Nathan coughed, pausing for a moment before he cleared his throat, “we can all kind of get an idea of what we’re headed for.”

“Nathan, you sound like me.” Charles laughed, albeit awkwardly. This didn’t seem right. “You should stop.”

Nathan sighed, “I’m trying to tell you something that...listen. You can’t...give up, alright?”

Raising an eyebrow, Charles looked over to Nathan, “What are you talking about?”

“When I die. You can’t just give up.”

“Nathan, no one said that I was going to --”

“Fucking shut up, and listen to me!” Nathan took off his eyepatch and held it in his hand, “We were dumb young fucking shits back then, and we’re not that now. You still look like you are, but we both know better. Just, don’t fucking give up, okay?”

Charles looked at Nathan, confused. The bad feeling he was getting was growing stronger as the time went on, and his heart was starting to feel as though something was clenched around it. Clearing his throat, Charles finally nodded, “Okay.”

“Good.” Nathan said, and patted Charles’ knee, a small smile on his lips. “You know, I have a good feeling about tomorrow.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I think we’re going to win this one. The plan, it’s a good one. It’s going to work. Abigail has things sorted out, I have a good feeling.”

“Since, uh, since when do you get ‘good feelings’ about things?” Charles asked, and Nathan laughed softly.

“Since I got really fucking old and realized that I lost an eye, and I was fighting a never ending war.”

“Good point.”

Nathan shifted a bit in the bed, and settled down further on the bed, setting his head against his pillow, as he looked up to Charles sitting next to him, “I think I’m going to like the look on your face when we win.”

Charles, who was looking away from Nathan at the time, looked down once Nathan spoke. “What?” Charles asked, even more confused now than ever. The way Nathan was acting, it wasn’t the way he usually acted. This was almost too...there was something _final_ in the way he was speaking.

The feeling around his heart got tighter. “Nathan, what?” Charles asked again, and Nathan seemed to shrug, as he closed his one good eye.

“Just a feeling I have. Trust me.” Nathan’s hand closed around the eyepatch, holding on to it as tightly as he could allow himself.

“Ah, alright.”

Charles stayed there for a while, as he listened to Nathan fall asleep. He stayed there as his breathing slowed further, and was still there as Nathan’s breathing just finally stopped hours later all together.

A hour after Nathan stopped breathing, Charles tried to feel for a pulse, but found nothing there.

****

*******

The four members of Dethklok sat in the conference room, staring at the screen with wide eyes. They watched as Charles moved off Nathan’s bed and stood next to him, seeming to be in mourning. There was a faint sound of crying, though it wasn’t clear if there was anything actually coming from Charles. After a few minutes, Charles bent down and lifted Nathan out of the bed with ease and carried him out of the bedroom and out into the hall.

The screen went black.

****

*******

Nathan opened his eyes -- both of them -- to realize he was in his old bedroom in Mordhaus. His hand lifted to touch his right eye, to make sure it was still actually there, and when it was, he felt an overwhelming feeling of dread.

So that was it.

He was dead.

He was dead, the war was still going on (as far as he knew) and he didn’t get to finish what he started. That was the worst part, Nathan hated leaving things unfinished.

He paced around the bedroom, finding himself in front of a mirror eventually and seeing the much younger version of himself that he hadn’t seen in years. His hand still tightly held onto the eyepatch, and when he realized that, he went back to his bed and tossed the eyepatch onto it. Apparently, he didn’t need it anymore. Why he had decided to bring it with him, he didn’t know now.

Outside his door, he could hear a small commotion, then silence. Then, there was a knock on his door.

“Nate?” His bedroom door opened slowly, as Nathan looked over to the door to see Pickles, William, Toki, and Skwisgaar standing there. “Were ya able to get through to him?”

“So...that really was you guys?” Nathan asked, though he already knew the answer. He had read all of Pickles notes, he knew what was coming. He knew he’d end up here eventually. “Yeah, I...I don’t know. I left the notebook, but I don’t know if he read it or even fucking _looked_ at it.”

“I don’t know if that worked, or anything worked...the screen went black.” Pickles said, and when Nathan looked at him with confusion, the four guys quickly tried to explain to Nathan what happened, what was going on, and how long they had been there.

“It’s been twenty years, right?” Nathan asked, because at least he had remembered the tallies he took, even if he didn’t appear to look like the older version of himself anymore.

“Or, twenty hours. Time is _really_ fucked up here,” William shrugged.

Nathan sighed, standing up and walking towards the guys, “So…uhhhhh, what now?”

The others remained silent as they just walked back to the conference room, to see if the screen would show anything.

After twenty more hours of waiting, it finally did.

Back in Nathan’s bedroom, what once was the eyepatch started to glow with a dark shine, and the item transformed back to it’s original shape of the basic red tie. The gear Nathan had once drawn on it remained.

****

*************

When Charles realized he was the last remaining person, he had lost it.

The overwhelming feeling that he was being watched only made it worse, and he did all that he could to try to hide from that undeniable feeling that was only making him angry. He had done everything he could to figure out a way to destroy the Half-Man once and for all.

He had done everything but read Nathan’s notebook that was left for him. That wasn’t to say that Charles didn’t keep the notebook with him. He did. It went everywhere he went, it went to each new safehouse, it went to each new underground Church that he went to.

He never read the notebook though.

Instead, he focused his anger on his enemy. He focused on making himself stronger, and each passing day, more of his humanity disappeared. In recruiting more and more to the church and the army of the Black Klok, Charles became more ruthless.

Fifteen years passed, then fifteen turned into twenty years and Charles had started to become less of the man he used to be, and more of the man the prophecy said he would become. He was more of a recluse now, only giving orders to his most trusted disciples, and even then he kept those conversations short.

The more that time passed, the more that Charles was giving up. On everything.

So that night, he sat in the main hall, in the place that was essentially a throne room, though no one but him went in there. In his hand, was one of his trusted pistols.

He sat down, and raised the gun to his head.

He pulled the trigger.

****

*************

“ _What the fuck_ ,” Nathan stood up from his seat, staring at the screen, as the others sat around the table, jaws practically to the ground. “Are you fucking kidding me? The fucking thing doesn’t work for _hours_ and then that’s the first fucking thing we see?”

“Be patient.” Ishinfus spoke, and Nathan growled at him.

“Are you fucking kidding me? He just _killed himself_.”

“Be patient,” the older man repeated, and Nathan was moving towards the man until he felt Pickles’ hand on his chest, pushing him back.

“Nate, look.” Pickles spoke, his eyes staring at the screen, and Nathan looked up.

On the screen, Charles started to move. He slowly sat back up in the chair, a bullet hole through the center of his forehead. Slowly, the hole started to heal itself, and with it, the bullet came back out, whole as if nothing happened. Charles’ wound healed completely.

Nathan sunk back down in his chair, “What the….”

“Dude,” Pickles spoke, as on the screen, Charles took out Nathan’s notebook and flipped to the end, where there was a list of weapons, “I think he’s trying to figure out what can kill him. See if anything can harm him...can harm the other dude.”

On the screen, Charles picked up a knife, and closed his eyes before bringing the knife down hard on his hand, slicing off his right thumb and pointer finger. They immediately regenerated.

“Hes insanes!” Toki cried out, and William grunted.

“He’s not human!”

“No,” Ishnifus interrupted, as Dethklok looked towards him, “He’s immortal now. He’s given up.”

****

*************

Five more years passed, being twenty five since Nathan passed away, and with each year, Charles tried as many things as he could to try to take his own life, to just finally be done with the war they had no way of winning. He tried to shoot himself, he tried different types of bullets, but nothing worked. No matter what was cut off, it regenerated back. Fire didn’t work. Electricity (as much of it was left in the world) didn’t work.

Nothing could kill him.

And if nothing could kill him, then there was only one conclusion. Nothing could kill the Half-Man.

What point was there fighting in a war they had no way of winning?

Charles spent his days giving orders still, but he no longer was on the battlefield as he was before. They were losing more people every day, and coming up on the thirty year anniversary of the war, the Half-Man almost had complete control of the Earth.

After everything, after all that Charles had read on the prophecy, this was it. It was the end, and he would live to see the end, and the possibly live to see beyond that.

It was fucking depressing.

That night, he walked back from overseeing that night’s battle and headed for the main room, where he found one of his trusted disciples waiting for him. “Your Holiness, I wanted to speak to you about--” the young man started, but in his hands Charles noticed Nathan’s notebook. When had he let it out of his sight?

Charles waved the man off, and gestured to the notebook in his hand, “No, I, ah, wanted to speak to you. Join me.”

The young monk followed Charles down the long hallway towards his chair, and when Charles took his seat, the young monk knelt in front of him.

“Your Holiness, I found this in the prophecy room, and I realized that…” He held up Nathan’s notebook and Charles took it from him, looking at the book and held onto it tightly.

This was the last thing he had left that meant anything, and he had let it out of his sight. When did he become so foolish? When did he completely lose sight of everything he was? When did he completely lose his humanity?

“Please. Let me speak. There is a story that I need to tell. I want you to listen carefully, and I want you to tell the others when I am done. Do you understand me?”

The young monk nodded, as he shifted to sit on the floor, his legs crossed.

Charles leaned back in his seat, and cleared his throat. “Where should I start?”

The young monk shrugged, “The beginning?”

Charles nodded. “Good.” He paused, before he spoke again, the young monk paying full attention. “By now, I’ve had many lives. Or, it feels like it…”

****

*************

Dethklok watched from the Mordhaus conference room, as Charles told his story. What had started as Charles speaking to just one Monk had turned into Charles speaking to at least a hundred of them, more of them filling in as they heard what was going on. Apparently, it was unheard of for the High Holy Priest to tell anything of such a personal nature, and word had traveled quickly.

_Charles was leaning forward in his seat, addressing only the young monk who was with him when he started to speak, though he was aware of the hundreds that had joined him, “Three, nothing can kill a man who is above life and death. And if you ever happen upon something that does, you use it to kill the Half Man, and then you bring that thing to me.”_

_A hushed sound fell over the monks, as they all whispered to each other, before the young monk spoke up, asking “Why?”_

_There was a pause, as a silence fell over the room, every single person in there giving Charles their full attention. They seemed to believe he deserved nothing less than that._

_Charles, on the other hand, took a long time before he finally replied, “Because nothing, nothing has been able to kill me.” He cleared his throat, seemingly overcome with some sort of emotion, “And trust me, I’ve tried.”_

_When he finished speaking, Charles leaned back into the chair, as the young monk stood up. “Your Holiness, that is what I was trying to tell you. We found something.”_

Toki looked over the table at Nathan, who seemed to be smiling. “Nathans?”

“That’s it.” Nathan said, and his voice got stronger, “that’s _fucking_ it!”

“What is?” Skwisgaar demanded, leaning forward.

Pickles looked at Nathan, and started to laugh, “There might be an end to this after all.”

****

*************

Charles stared at the young monk in front of him, blinking a few times. “What do you mean, you’ve _found_ something?”

The young monk nodded towards the notebook that rested in Charles’ lap. “Your Holiness, the prophecy, it changed on the wall today. A new painting appeared.”

“Ah, what?”

“It’s the same image that is drawn over and over in that notebook.”

Charles opened up the notebook to the beginning pages that he had never let himself look at before. Over and over, the familiar gear was drawn.

On the last page that Nathan had written on, there was one very familiar line. _We fear not our mortality._

Charles held tight onto the notebook as he stood up and ran out of the main room towards the room where the prophecy was painted on the wall.

There was something he had to see for himself.

****

*************

As the rest of the guys discussed what this new development could mean, Pickles excused himself for a moment. He left the conference room and headed down the long hallway towards his bedroom.

Sitting on his bed, instead of his twin swords, were two drumsticks. The drumsticks had the gear symbol burned into the side of each one.

When Pickles approached them, he picked them up and they felt solid in his hands, and he drummed a beat onto the edge of the wall, and as he did, a dark glow came from the hallway. “The fuck…?” He muttered, running out into the hallway to see that suddenly, a new door had appeared.

As he approached the door, a familiar keypad appeared on the wall next to the door. It took a moment to register, but once it did, Pickles ran down the hall back to the conference room with his drumsticks firmly in his hands, “Dudes! Guess what just fucking happened!”


	6. Chapter 6

As Charles finally reached the prophecy room, he looked at the paintings on the wall. Everything seemed the same - except for one key image.

A new painting had appeared: it now showed the Half Man and the Dead Man battling, with all five of the guys behind them, though they had what appeared to be a glow around them. In the Dead Man’s hand was a battle axe.

The battle axe seemed to be the weapon that would kill the Half Man.

As Charles walked closer to the wall to inspect it, a monk came running in. “Your Holiness!”

Keeping his back to the monk, Charles ran a finger along the wall, tracing the image of the axe. “How long has this been here?”

“It started while you were telling us your story, your Holiness. We believe this depicts the final battle, one that you must fight.”

“But the guys are all here, this can’t be right. They’re dead.”

The monk nodded, “Their powers are still tied to you though, it is my theory that you just haven’t activated them yet.”

Raising an eyebrow, Charles moved his hand off the wall and looked at the monk. The young man was no older than Charles was before he hit his immortality, and in that small moment, Charles remembered just how long this was all going on. “What do you mean I haven’t activated them?”

“The gear, sir, we think it has to do with the gear.”

Charles’ arms came to cross across his chest, as he got a contemplative look on his face. The gear was the one thing that had always tied all members of Dethklok and the employees, even Charles himself, together. They lived by the gear and they died by the gear. Idly, Charles moved a hand to rest on where his gear mark had been placed years before, only to realize that instead of the scarring over of the brand, there was smooth skin. The thoughtful look on his face turned quickly to one of shock. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Yes?”

“I need you to get two mirrors, and I need you to get any weapons that we still have here. I have something to test.” The monk looked a little worried at Charles’ mention of weapons, but he knew better than to go against the word of the High Holy Priest and nodded. He quickly started to make his way out of the room before Charles called him back, “Oh, and I need one more thing from you.”

Charles, still holding Nathan’s notebook from when he walked into the room, walked up to the monk and flipped through the notebook pages until he found a sketch of what he was looking for. “I need you to get me this.”

On the notebook, was a sketch of the gear branding iron. The monk nodded and ran out of the room, as Charles went back to looking at the notebook. “Why didn’t I see this before?”

It wasn’t long before the monk returned with others in tow, carrying the items that Charles had asked for.

First, the mirrors were used to check the back of Charles’ neck, as he held one in front of him and one behind him, seeing that where the brand was once, was no longer there. It was as if the skin had never been burned, had never seen a scar, and never had a mark on it. Quickly, a theory was starting to form.

Only the monk from before stayed in the room as Charles dismissed the rest, and he picked up a small knife. The monk watched as Charles cut along the inside of his hand, but did not react to the pain, and while he was cut, the cut did not bleed. The cut quickly regenerated itself, as all of Charles’ other wounds had done before.

Charles, still holding the knife, moved to a chair and table in the side of the room, and sat down, looking at the various etching tools on the table. There were pens and pencils, notebooks, but nothing that could have done the paintings on the walls. One black marker rested on the table, and Charles picked it up. “How did this get here?”

“It was with Master Nathan’s things, your Holiness.” The monk said, and Charles just nodded, not wanting any further explanation. He rested the knife on the table next to the knife.

“I need you to bring that electric branding iron over here now,” Charles said, not an ounce of fear or worry in his voice, “And I need you to brand the back of my neck.”

“I…”

“ _ **Now**_ ”, Charles demanded, as the young monk finally nodded and came over to Charles and stood behind him. “Do it.”

The monk complied and pressed the hot branding iron to Charles’ skin, and at first, Charles did not feel any pain. He felt nothing, but as the brand pressed further, there was an odd sensation of burning. He could smell his flesh burning, he could feel the heat, and he could suddenly _feel the pain_.

For the first time in almost thirty years, Charles screamed.

****

*************

“ _Fuck_!” Nathan screamed, hissing as he felt a burning sensation to where his own gear brand was, and stood up quickly in the conference room, knocking his chair over as he did so. His fingers moved to the back of his neck where his own gear was, only to find his skin hot and sensitive to the touch. As he looked up at the others, the other four were all have the same reaction.

“What the fuck? Aren’t we dead, how the fuck are we supposed to feel this shit?” William cursed, immediately looking at Ishinfus sitting at the end of the table. The old man only had a smile on his face.

“My friends, he is finding his connection to you again.”

“Yeahs but does he has to burns us as wells?” Skwisgaar scoffed, a sneer on his lips to show his annoyance at the situation. Toki, sitting next to Skwisgaar, only laughed happily.

“This is ams goods!” Toki nodded, despite feeling the burning of the gear himself.

Pickles crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Nathan gather his chair back up and sit back down next to the drummer. “So what, what does this mean?”

On the television screen, Charles had stopped screaming as the brand finished.

****

*************

Charles closed his eyes for a moment and took in deep breathes, seemingly surprised that he was able to feel any sort of pain. The monk who had branded him was no longer standing behind him, but rather in front of the table now, waiting for his next instruction.

But there was silence as Charles picked up the knife again and cut his hand once more, but gave out a bit of an audible wince as he did so. The cut did not heal as quickly, but it eventually healed. There was no blood.

The knife was placed back down on the table, and Charles picked up the marker, and drew the gear onto the knife. As he did so, the ink seemed to some how burn into the metal of the knife itself, fusing with the weapon.

Charles lifted the knife once more, and placed it on his hand, and cut.

There was pain. There was blood.

It didn’t heal.

The monk looked on in shock, as Charles looked at his bleeding hand, and started to laugh. Really laugh, though it turned almost demonic after a bit. When Charles looked up, there was a red glow behind his eyes, and a wicked grin on his lips.

“We need every weapon we have. Now. And find me that battle axe. I have some branding to do.”

****

*************

While Charles prepared in the latest Church hideout, individually branding each and every damn weapon, bullet, rope, anything that the monks brought him, Dethklok had left the conference room in Mordhaus to look around.

Mostly to follow Pickles, because he had to show them what he had found.

“Dudes, I came back from my room, and I saw his keypad on the wall!” Pickles spoke quickly as the five of them headed down the ever growing single hallway that was their Mordhaus now. “I didn’t open it though, I wanted to wait for you guys.”

The five of them stopped in front of a familiar door and keypad on the wall, as Pickles had said. There was hushed whispers among them, as if they were afraid someone would hear: “Does anyones know the passcodes?” “Oh jesus christ, what the hell is going to be behind that door? What _else_ do we need here?” “Murderface, don’t be a fucknig idiot, that’s Charles’ door.” “Then opens it, Nathans!”

They all looked at Nathan who narrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t remember the code.”

“You’re fuckin’ lying, Nate,” Pickles said, jabbing a finger right into Nathan’s chest. “You used that code more than any of us, and you’re tellin’ me you don’t remember?”

Nathan stared at Pickles and muttered something under his breath as he finally pushed the guys to the side and went to the keypad. He punched in a series of numbers and there was a clicking sound to indicate the door was unlocked.

“What was the code?” William asked, before they pushed the door open. Nathan shrugged.

“Charles’ birthday, don’t tell him I remember that shit, okay? I mean, if we see him again.” He placed a hand to the door knob. Slowly, Nathan opened the door and pushed it open to reveal Charles’ office, but not quite.

Half the furniture was there - literally half of the desk, half of the chair, half of the couch. The guys stepped in further and started to explore around the room. Only half of everything was in the room, though it seemed that other things were trying to form themselves fully. 

“What the fuck is going on?” William finally said, breaking the shocked silence between all of them. “Why is only half his shit here when all of ours was here when we got...dead and shit?”

“Because he ams not dead, Murderface!” Toki shot back, narrowing his eyes at the other man.

“Then why is his shit here at all? Fuck you, Toki,” William hissed back.

Nathan went to step between the two of them, but felt Pickles’ hand on his chest holding him back. “Wait, Nathan, he’s right. Charles’ things shouldn’t be here if he’s not dead. This is...our fucked up afterlife, right? Charles’ things should be here if he’s not dead.”

“Gentlemen, I think you need to come back to the conference room,” Ishinfus’ voice was suddenly heard, though he was no where to be seen. “There is something that is going on that needs your attention.”

In the thirty minutes the guys had spent, six months had passed, and a significant change was happening.

****

*************

Six months after realizing the gear really was the key to everything, the Black Klok army was finally making a huge dent. With each passing day, more of the Half Man’s army fell, and they fell quickly. With every weapon the Black Klok had being blessed with the gear by the High Holy Priest himself, it made each member of the army stronger. They all got the gear brand, something Charles had never thought to give them before, which looking back on was a poor judgement on his part.

After all, the Klokateers all got the brand, so why hadn’t he thought to do the same with the army? Possibly because they were losing them as fast as they were gaining them. Things were different now. The army was fighting more like a well oiled machine. Charles had become more human, giving up his immortality once he rebranded himself with the gear.

He was determined to end this fucking war once and for all.

Charles, despite finding a way to make himself mortal again, still retained his powers. But he knew he wasn’t unstoppable anymore. He wasn’t immortal. He would get wounded, he would break an arm, or get shot, but his arm break would heal a little faster than the normal human if he concentrated hard enough. A gunshot wound, well he would heal normally - because he was quickly realizing that now, weapons would be fatal to him.

Fatal or not, it didn’t stop Charles from being cold and calculated on the battlefield, and now almost six months to the day since Charles had figured out the key to possibly killing the Half Man (and himself), he was now on the battlefield with his top lieutenants fighting alongside them. In his hands, Charles held the battleaxe that had been depicted on the prophecy wall, with all sides of the axe branded with the gear in different shapes and sizes.

“Take the east! You, take the west, I’ll take the north. The rest are in the south, they’ll catch up. Radio your troops and tell them which path to take, we have a good chance at getting close to the end.” Charles called out over the gunfire, the slicing of body parts to sharp metal, the screams of the enemy falling and dying in pain. The lieutenants nodded and fought off on their way that Charles directed, and Charles went forward south.

He was surrounded by dead trees, but they still gave enough cover if he needed it, the trees large enough to hide behind if he was crouched. His feet didn’t make much sound, despite walking on leaves and broken branches, as he snuck forward. He hadn’t let anyone else know, but he knew exactly what was ahead.

It was the end. It was the Half Man.

Holding on tightly to his axe, Charles spotted a small group of troops ahead. With them, was the Half Man himself.

Anger took Charles over, and he charged the troops, screaming.

****

*************

In the conference room, Dethklok watched as Charles ran towards the troops. But instead of giving commentary as to what was going on, there was silence in the room. No one said a word.

Not a word was said when Charles started to slice off the heads of the enemy, and used his energy to shove them back when they got too close.

Not a word was said when more troops seemed to come out of no where, almost looking as if they were multiplying.

Not a word was said when suddenly, the troop gathering of 20 men had turned into 200, and all 200 of those men turned into exact images of the Half Man.

Instead, they all watched in silent horror.

****

*************

Well. Cloning yourself on the battlefield? That was a new one.

They were fighting Charles with everything they had, and Charles was fighting back, and for every clone he took down, two more would appear in its place. There was a strong possibility that this wouldn’t end well.

Even this wasn’t something that Charles could have prepared for, as he felt his adrenaline pumping, and he was hit with the idea that he might actually die without completing his goal. He hadn’t thought of death as something that could actually happen in such a long time that it could have been an emotion that would overwhelm him if he had let it. But that wasn’t the case.

Charles was extremely aware of the situation. He was cornered, he was outnumbered. But it was also the clearest he had been in months. It didn’t look good. But if he was going to go out, he’d go out fighting, and he’d take out as many people as he could with him.

He didn’t fear his mortality. Not any more.

But suddenly, all the men stopped their movements and broke away from Charles, and Charles took a fighting stance, holding up the battleaxe, holding onto it for dear life. “God dammit fucking show yourself,” Charles hissed, as his eyes took on a deep red glow, as his voice bellowed, “ ** _Now_** ”

Charles watched as one of the Half Man clones stood in front of him, and watched as the other clones started to mystically fade into the Half Man in front of him until there was only the Half Man and Charles standing in the middle of the dead forest, and Charles moved to attack.

He was too slow, as suddenly a hand came out and grabbed around his neck.

For Charles, everything went black.

****

*************

As the screen went black, Nathan immediately shot out of his chair and ran down the hallway, and without questioning it, the rest of the guys followed, as they ended up in Charles’ office once more.

Once inside the office, Nathan had gone to the fireplace and was pressing the stones near the wall, trying to find something. Trying to find _anything_.

Something was telling him this was how they would help Charles. Something told him this is how they could help end the war for good. He just couldn’t place a finger on how he knew it. But he felt it. This could be the end.

When Nathan found it, a stone with a gear etched into it, he pressed it. The others joined behind him as a door appeared, and slid out of the wall, as a red glow came out of the hidden room.

“We’re not going in there!” William growled, but Nathan grabbed his arm.

“Just for that, you’re first, asshole,” Nathan said as he pulled William towards him and then shoved him through the open space, and Nathan went in after him. Toki ran in after Nathan, and Skwisgaar ran after Toki.

Pickles looked around the office, and looked over to where Charles’ desk had been only half formed before, to find it fully formed now. It was a sign. “See ya soon, chief,” he muttered, as he finally went through the door as well.

As Pickles walked through the glowing doorway, the hidden wall slid shut again, and molded back in with the rest of the wall, as if a doorway had never been there at all.

In the conference room, Ishinfus smiled. The old priest closed his eyes, and slowly, he faded away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Bet you thought you saw the last of me. 
> 
> Sorry for the delay on this, but we're in the home stretch (I hope, anyway!) The next chapter won't take as long to go up, I promise!


	7. Chapter 7

When he finally came to, Charles found his arms bound by rope, and he was hanging on a hook. There was nothing but darkness around him, though he could feel someone else’s presence with him. He knew who it was.

“Hello, Charles.” The voice called out, a wickedly deep voice, as the Half Man stepped forward in his human form, wearing a nicely tailored suit. “It’s been a long time coming. I’m surprised you allowed yourself to be captured so easily.”

“It is quite possible that this is all part of my plan.” Charles replied, and Selatcia laughed, a dark demonic sound ringing underneath it.

Charles couldn’t say more, as before he knew it, Selatcia took form of Charles himself, although the eyes were different. The hair was different, but for anyone not looking closely, they would have thought Selatcia _was_ Charles himself.

It didn’t sit well with him, and Charles felt his eyes burning red, he felt the power within him starting to manifest, but when he tried to use it, nothing happened.

Selatcia, watching Charles closely, laughed a deep dark laugh. But in the form he had taken, Charles was watching himself laugh at him. Watching himself laugh at the fact that Charles had failed. Had gotten captured by the one man he had been trying to kill for over thirty years.

“I could easily take over your army. Take over your life. No one would know the difference,” The Half Man spoke so calmly in Charles’ voice, that Charles himself felt the anger boil up in him. “But,” Selatcia continued and took back his own human form, “That would be too easy. If I _wanted_ easy, I would have done it already.”

Charles went to say something, but Selatica had quickly flew forward and slammed his razor sharp fingernails into Charles’ side, and Charles screamed out in pain. The hand _slowly_ removed from Charles’ side, as blood started to trickle down. “I’m going to torture you, and then I am going to kill you. You gave up your immortality, which means….I’m going to destroy you.”

Charles was stabbed again, and once more, he screamed. This time, though, there was a more demonic side to it, and Charles’ eyes glowed a deeper read. 

Selatcia laughed.

****

*************

They walked forward, towards the light.

“Yous gots to be kiddings me,” Skwisgaar protested, as the complaining of William was heard within the group.

“We’re going towards the light! We’re going to die!”

“ _Ughhh_ , Murderface, we’re already dead, did you miss that?” Nathan growled, and rolled his eyes, as he continued the walk forward. They had been walking for what felt like hours, which didn’t seem to go so well in the purgatory they were in. 30 minutes meant six months, an hour meant a year.

So hours, plural? Nathan didn’t like what that meant.

Other than the protest from William, the random humming from Pickles, or the odd questions from Toki, the five of them mostly stayed silent. Just kept walking forward, hoping they would see something.

They soon did. A black door, almost looking medieval in design, waiting for them. There was no where else to go but through the door.

So naturally, Nathan reached for the door handle.

“Wait! What if there is an evil monster there?!” Toki protested, and Nathan put his hand on Toki’s shoulder.

“We have to get Charles,” he said, and Pickles agreed. “We gotta get the chief, dude.”

Nathan, taking a deep breath (despite the fact that he was dead and well, didn’t _need_ to do that), opened the door, and lead them through.

What they saw on the other side was desolation. It was a literal wasteland of the Earth they once knew. They didn’t know _where_ in the world they were, but at least they knew they were there.

Trees were dead and fallen to the ground, if they weren’t still burning in a gray flame. Bodies were thrown all over the landscape, some torn in half, some whole but mutilated badly, but all of them were dead. Dead, wearing the seal of the Gear. All of them, dead.

The five stayed quiet as they tried to figure out what was going on. Pickles went around and searched some of the bodies, trying to find proof of who they were, something he had done a lot when he was still alive and fighting. Nathan examined the trees, the landscape, trying to get a feel of what their location was, something _he_ did a lot as well.

Pickles had found a map on one of the fallen men, and was bringing it over to Nathan when they heard it.

A loud scream, almost demonic, in pure pain. It shot through the air like a warning sound, and Nathan recognized the sound. He knew the voice. He remembered it from when he was alive, and he remembered it from when he watched the video as Charles had finally figured out the puzzle of the Gear.

“CHARLES!” He screamed and started to run towards the sound, the others following, Pickles running exactly beside Nathan in step. They were around Charles longer than the rest of them, they knew what he used to be capable of. But if he wasn’t anymore…

That wasn’t good.

So they ran. Hopefully towards him.

Hopefully still alive.

****

*************

He couldn’t remember how long he had been here. It felt like years. Maybe it had been. He had grown a beard, though it wasn’t as if he could do anything with it.

When he was lowered from the hook in the ceiling, it was only so he could be fed, before he was put right back up there. They were smart - they fed him enough to keep him awake, but not enough to get his full energy back, and because of that, he was drained. He was powerless. His eyes still glowed red, as he had tried to pull as much of his power forward to protect himself, but the red was not as deep, was not as bright.

But just when he thought he had gotten exhausted, had lost all means to scream, Selatcia would find a way. He _always_ found a way. Sometimes, it would be with physical torture. Sometimes it would be telling him how the rest of his army was brutally murdered, and he’d mess with Charles’ mind to show him _exactly_ how it happened.

He had broken Charles years ago. Months ago. Charles didn’t know the time frame anymore.

He wanted to die though. He wanted it to be over. He wasn’t sure he believed in the afterlife, but if he did, he hoped he’d get to see the guys again one last time.

So when they appeared in front of him, while he was hanging from the hook in the ceiling, his body cut and bleeding, some wounds healed, some freshly opened, looking like half of the man he was before, he thought he was dying.

For years, all Charles had wanted to do was die, was to give up, was to finally get off the Earth and be rid of this war. He had finally found a way to die, and now that he was knowingly on the breech of death, he was scared and broken.

Charles was _scared_.

He heard familiar voices shouting at each other, arguing. “Get him down from there!” “Oh shit, Charlie, what did he do to you?” “I thoughts he was immortals or somethings?” “Didn’t you see the fucking video? He fucked that all up!” “For fucks sake, Murderface, _shut up_!” “Will you assholes stop it? Help me get him down!”

That last voice belonged to a man with long black hair, reaching up to remove the rope on Charles’ hands, and Charles felt his body give way as he fell down, Nathan catching him and Pickles and Toki running to help as they got him to the ground. Charles’ eyes were blurry, unfocused, but after he blinked a few times, he saw them all come to view.

All five of them, kneeling in front of him, as young as when the war started. Young, unharmed. Restored to who they were before.

“How…” Charles tried to choke out, but Pickles put his hand over Charles’.

“Chief, we gotta get you out of here. Where is--” Pickles had started, as William and Pickles helped Charles up, but the question he was asking was interrupted.

Because the Half Man stood in front of them, laughing. “Five years, and you show up now? Now, when he’s weak and _so_ close to the death he’s been begging for? This world is _mine_.”

To prove that, he moved quickly past the others and his hand moved around Charles’ throat, as he lifted him into the air, Charles’ legs kicking, his hands trying to pull away Selatcia’s hand from his throat. To move the hand that was slowly closing around his windpipe, dangerously close to killing him.

“No!” Nathan protested, and ran for Selatcia but was pushed back by a gust of power, and was knocked back right into William, who muttered about pushing Nathan off of him. Nathan got back up, and the others rose to their feet, as again he said no.

But this time, something was different. The five of them said it in unison, the five of them stood up and had their fists clenched tight.

Charles could see it out of the corner of his eyes, and it gave him a feeling he hadn’t had in years. Actual hope that they could still win this.

The color came back to his eyes, the bright demonic red, and as the Half Man saw this, he looked at Charles with curiosity, and tightened his grip around Charles’ neck.

All Charles had to do was say one word, and he did exactly that, “ ** _No_** ”

The reaction was immediate. It was as if the dethlights had activated in the five all over again, but it was much powerful now, as Charles could feel the power directing through him. As the five behind him lifted into the air, the dethlights activated, the power shot through them towards Charles, who closed his eyes for one moment.

For one brief moment, and it felt like time stopped. He thought about the past. He thought about the years of fighting, the deaths. Losing each of them, one by one. William. Toki. Skwisgaar. Pickles. Nathan. The fact that he had lived years beyond that, alone, almost giving up the fight.

He wasn’t going to die by the terms of Selatcia. He was going to die on his own terms.

_This_ was his own terms.

He opened his eyes, and power exploded out of Charles, causing Selatcia to release his grip and take a step back, and as the power grew, it engulfed the room. Charles stared at Selatcia as the Half Man screamed, as he disintegrated right in front of the six of them, and died, disappearing into the shadows of the burned and charred room.

Charles turned to look at the five behind him, and all of them were still floating in the air, Charles as well, and as Charles locked eyes with Nathan, he knew what would happen next.

The power exploded the room, and everything went black.

****

*************

When he woke up, it was in a bed he knew he hadn’t seen for almost forty years.

The room was dark, and there was moonlight coming through the large window, the only thing that gave any light to the room. He shifted, sat up, and rested against the headboard as he blinked and tried to clear up his vision. A familiar headache started to form, so he did something he hadn’t done in years. He reached for his glasses.

He remembered that normally around this time, he would wear contacts when his glasses weren’t around. Before he had been given power from the dethlight as well, before he had become demonic and immortal.

He moved his hand around until he found the glasses and put them on, and as his vision cleared up, he moved to get out of bed. Now, it was a matter of reliving everything. The gun under his pillow, the silver lamp next to his bed. The selection of blood red ties, and dark gray suits he chose to wear.

He switched a light on, and walked over to the mirror on the wall, amazed at what he saw.

He was now as he had remembered before, and while he hadn’t aged in the years of the war, he knew he had once he lost his immortality. None of that was here. The only scar on his face was the one he had received when he died and had been brought back. He hadn’t realized his fate yet. He hadn’t chosen to believe it.

The scars that lined his chest and back were scars from before. Not from the war. Nothing here was from the war.

He tried to bring forth his power, though, and while there was a light of red in his eyes, nothing else manifested.

“My friend, you are not as you were,” a familiar voice spoke to him, and Charles turned around to see Ishinfus sitting in a nearby chair. “Not as you remember being.”

Charles looked at Ishinfus with curiosity, as he walked over to the closet and grabbed a black t-shirt, pulling it on. “I’m more concerned with how you are here right now, considering you are dead.”

“You are too, my friend. But, I know you have figured that out by now.”

He remembered. The power that that manifested in all of them, that had reached it’s full potential, it was going to kill them no matter what. The five of them were already dead. Charles was the last to go. And when they took out the Half Man, Charles took out himself. Rubbing at his chin, he took a seat at the chair next to Ishinfus, and listened as the man told him everything.

How the guys came here. How they were able to see everything Charles did. How they somehow figured out how to come to get him. How time passed.

“The world is destroyed, so how is time passing now?” Charles asked, and Ishinfus looked at Charles with amusement.

“It is not destroyed, it is waiting to be restarted, if you wish it so.”

“If it restarts, then everything will happen all over again.”

“If that is what you wish, yes.”

“I don’t want to see everyone die again.”

“Then, do not wish it so.”

There was a long pause between the men, and Charles sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, his glasses falling to the tip of his nose. He pushed the glasses back up, not used to the need to have them, and looked back to Ishinfus. “If we start it over, can we pick a time to start? Can we stop Selatcia before the war happens? Would we, would _I_ still have the power I had before?”

“That is a matter of discovery. Aren’t you curious?” Ishinfus asked, before he disappeared completely from the chair, leaving Charles alone in the room.

He sat there in silence for a moment, as he thought of what to do. When he had arrived at a decision, he dressed in jeans, grabbed his leather jacket, and headed out of his bedroom.

When he left the bedroom and shut the door behind him, he was greeted by his office. Exactly everything the way he had left it when he resigned his position. Nothing had changed. Though, that was because of where he was, wasn’t it? It was what was familiar to him. This wasn’t really Mordhaus. He wasn’t really sure what this was.

He might have been the High Holy Priest, but they weren’t that type of church. Not one that preached about an afterlife. Certainly not one like this.

He didn’t give himself time to explore the room he was so familiar with, as he left and started to walk down the hall. This was new. One hallway, with doors coming off of it. No winding turns, just one hallway with one large door at the end of it.

As he reached the end of the hallway, he stood in front of the large door, reaching from the floor to the top of the ceiling, taking up the entire wall.

“That’s a new one,” He heard a voice behind him, and Charles turned to see the guys come out of their rooms, all walking towards the door. It was Pickles who had spoken, as he walked up to Charles, and nodded towards him.

“Where do you think it goes?” Nathan said, as he walked up to the other side of Charles, his hands in his pockets. Charles looked towards him, and smiled. Nathan returned the gesture.

“We could maybe end the war before it starts.” Charles said, as he looked back at the door.

“Well, what are we waiting for!” William spoke, sounded just so annoyed, and Charles actually chuckled at this.

He reached for the door handle, and he opened the door. A bright light called out to them, and the six men walked through the door.

****

*************

They were sitting in the conference room, all in their familiar seats. But, something was different.

William’s bandage on his arm was back. All of the men were still alive, and Charles was dressed in a suit and tie. But they all had the memories. Of what happened, of how they got there.

Like, for example, Charles wasn’t supposed to be here. He had already left the band by this point.

“What is going -” William started to complain but just then, men dressed in black started to come through the windows and started to attack. This time, something was different.

Pickles had swords he had been used to using in the war. Nathan had his favorite gun. Skwisgaar had his pistol of choice, and Toki had an identical one. William didn’t have a weapon. Charles didn’t either.

The men fought, as one man started to go towards William. He protested, and while the others knew what was going to happen, Charles did not because he hadn’t been there.

But he knew.

He knew who the man was.

His glowing white eyes gave him away.

As the others fought with the attackers, Charles brought his attention towards the man running for William and he called out to him, “ _ **Selatcia**_ ,” His voice bellowed, the demonic power once more going through him, and this time? This time he had control over the power. He wasn’t weak and on the verge of death.

He was on the verge of life. They all were.

At the sound of his name, the man turned around and took form, as Charles’ eyes glowed a deep red. William's eyes started to glow, then the rest of the band, as they all turned on Selatcia.

The power activated in them all, and they all had control over it. They knew what to do, and who to focus it on. They all started towards their intended target, with Charles leading the assault.

“That’s my bread and butter you’re fucking with,” Charles said, with a devious grin, as the power shot through his hands and through that of the band, and it ripped Selatcia into pieces, dissolving him into dust and black smoke, as he screamed.

The power disappeared slowly, retreating into each of the men, and they stood around, looking down at once was the Half Man, and then each of them looked up at each other. Charles looked over at William, who took the bandage off his arm to find the purple wound he had before was gone. As if it was never there in the first place.

“So, what now?” Nathan asked, breaking the silence as they all looked at each other, and then the band looked expectantly at Charles.

For the first time in forty years, Charles grinned. He knew exactly what to do.

“We get back to business,” He said, and without a beat, and a smirk on his lips, “Don’t you guys have an album to record?”

To his surprise, it was met with only two protests. The rest was laughter.

****

*************

Particles of dust and black smoke filtered through the air as it moved as one unit towards it’s intended location, looking for a place to form again.

This place was at the tribunal, at a familiar chair with two familiar men watching and waiting.

While it wasn’t a solid form, it did it’s best to form into something familiar. “We go to plan B,” the dust spoke, “They will pay for this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, long time no update! I apologize for that, but here we are finally at the end. It's been over a year since my last update, so you might need to do a re-read (well, maybe that's just me encouraging re-reads of this!) Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for being patient with me!


End file.
